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No, Apple doesn't sell parts, though it would be nice if they did. The main way screens appear in the repair business is from companies in China that buy back

No, Apple doesn't sell parts, though it would be nice if they did. The main way screens appear in the repair business is from companies in China that buy back screens with broken glass but functional LCD. They then replace the glass with new glass. Most of the screen is OEM, but not the top glass. They then ship these to repair shops and distributors, who use them to replace screens. That's why I mentioned in a previous comment that it's all about the warranty with a repair shop. No shop will warranty a cracked or broken screen, but most decent shops will warranty digitizer (touch) issues as long as there's no physical damage to the screen. That type of warranty is a must-have--there are only a small percentage of screens that go bad after a few days or weeks of use, but it really sucks if you get one and the shop refuses to replace it. > The whole electronics repair business seems rather immature and shady compared to something like car repair. Well, both are shady (plenty of YouTube exposes on oil change places that upsell services, charge for them, and don't perform them.) Honestly, one of the reasons I came into this industry was I was aware of the huge need for a non-shady repair shop in Austin, TX (where I live.) We're the highest-rated independent repair shop in Austin, and we take that pretty seriously, since there are so many horror stories of bad computer/game console/phone repair shops out there. We do our best to do right by our customers.

TorKlingberg 10y ago
Thank you for all the information. This explains the volatile prices: it depends on the supply of broken screens. I assume when you replace a display assembly, you sell the old one?
- ericabiz 10y ago
  Yes, many places will buy them. They pay more if the LCD is still intact because they're easier to refurbish.
dave_sullivan 10y ago
> The main way screens appear in the repair business is from companies in China that buy back screens with broken glass but functional LCD. That's really interesting. I had assumed these were being manufactured somewhere to fit into apple devices, but instead there're huge operations that are buying tons of broken screens and essentially refurbishing them? Is that for legal reasons or cost reasons or other? I'm curious: what does the supply chain look like? A) Person breaks their screen, how much do they get from one of those shops that buy broken phones? Does that firm then break it down and sell the parts? Like a smart phone chop shop? B) If so, who are they selling to? Surely not the refurb factories themselves, the factories wouldn't want to deal with that many individual people. So are people aggregating these and then selling in bulk to manufacturers? Any idea on the pricing around that? Does there seem to be a dominant player in the market or are there many people doing this? C) After refurb, how much does the new screen then go for? You mentioned it's like a market--what's the range been in the last few years vs today? And what about Android?

TorKlingberg 10y ago

Thank you for all the information. This explains the volatile prices: it depends on the supply of broken screens. I assume when you replace a display assembly, you sell the old one?

ericabiz 10y ago
Yes, many places will buy them. They pay more if the LCD is still intact because they're easier to refurbish.

dave_sullivan 10y ago

> The main way screens appear in the repair business is from companies in China that buy back screens with broken glass but functional LCD. That's really interesting. I had assumed these were being manufactured somewhere to fit into apple devices, but instead there're huge operations that are buying tons of broken screens and essentially refurbishing them? Is that for legal reasons or cost reasons or other? I'm curious: what does the supply chain look like? A) Person breaks their screen, how much do they get from one of those shops that buy broken phones? Does that firm then break it down and sell the parts? Like a smart phone chop shop? B) If so, who are they selling to? Surely not the refurb factories themselves, the factories wouldn't want to deal with that many individual people. So are people aggregating these and then selling in bulk to manufacturers? Any idea on the pricing around that? Does there seem to be a dominant player in the market or are there many people doing this? C) After refurb, how much does the new screen then go for? You mentioned it's like a market--what's the range been in the last few years vs today? And what about Android?